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May 21, 2014: Now that a federal appeals court in New Orleans has decided not to reconsider its stance that businesses can collect money from BP’s multibillion-dollar oil-spill settlement fund without having to show that the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster actually caused their losses, some experts following the case believe it is only a matter of days before long-stalled payments of certain claims can resume.

Other experts, though, say the ongoing legal challenges by BP must finish working their way through the courts first. […]

David Logan, dean of the law school at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, said he expects BP will try to take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court but that the odds the court will agree to hear the case are long, in part because the court receives about 10,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari each year, granting and hearing oral arguments in only about 80 cases.

Even so, Logan said, it’s possible the injunction against payments will remain in place until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case. “We’re talking about what might be a six-month delay before the papers get organized and submitted,” he said, adding that the delay could be made “out of an abundance of caution.”

“Once the money gets paid out, you can’t claw it back, so it’s certainly possible (Judge Barbier) would say, as long as there remains a plausible appeal here,” he will not lift the injunction, Logan said.